Against all odds, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle was a charmingly weird success, fusing Nintendo mega-star mascot Mario with Ubisoft's less-than-inspiring little rabbit oddballs and throwing them into a turn-based strategy game, of all things. It was an open question then whether Ubisoft, which took the lead on the project, would be able to capture the ineffable Nintendo magic while borrowing some of the company's most iconic characters. With that question now answered, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope sets its sights higher, managing to not only be a surprisingly good Mario spin-off, but legitimately be better than some of Nintendo's own recent games starring the plucky plumber.
Like the original, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is very strange. It occupies a parallel version of the Mushroom Kingdom where Mario and his friends casually socialize with their Rabbid doppelgangers, and where many of them are packing heat--albeit in an abstract, bubblegum package. The Rabbids are a little obnoxious and off-putting, but Mario and his friends seem too polite to say anything. When they discover a Spark, a new life form that is obviously a Rabbid fused with one of Rosalina's Lumas, they immediately know something must be wrong because Rosalina would never allow that to happen to her babies. The implicit acknowledgement that being a Rabbid mutant is a terrible fate got a good chuckle out of me right from the jump.
This is indicative of how Ubisoft approaches the overall tone: reverent and respectful of Mario lore, such as it is, while cheeky and self-aware about its own Rabbids creations. Mario and his friends are video game royalty, and its cast includes a literal space goddess. The Rabbids were always made to be annoying; that was sort of the joke. These are not the same, and the game knows it, juxtaposing the two against one another to surprising comedic effect.
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